CityLife

ITC interview: Orphan Boy

FETED by Clash legend Mick Jones, signed up by cool independent label Concrete Recordings, and spoken about as one of the big draws at this year's In The City festival, Manchester band Orphan Boy have already staked their place as serious hot property.

Only problem is, they seem to be getting upstaged (quite literally) by their rabid fans and followers - all known collectively as the Orphanites.

"The Orphanites?'' ponders Rob Cross, one of the band's two vocalists/guitarists.

"They're all nutters. But they're good-natured nutters. They often tend to invade the stage at our gigs, and pinch instruments and go mad. It can get pretty rowdy... we've been barred from some venues 'cos of our fans getting a bit too excitable. But they're not hooligans or anything. They're just, well, enthusiastic.''

"That's true,'' smiles band member Smiffy who also sings and plays guitar. "We've had one Orphanite who scratched `Orphan Boy' into his arm with a knife. It's his own DIY tattoo. I don't think it turned out that well, though. It went green the last time I saw it.''

Where some contemporary indie bands make you want to dance and wave glowsticks, others inspire you to sport skinny jeans and daft haircuts, Manchester's Orphan Boy are the band most likely to send their audiences into bedlam and start whacking each other on the head with pint glasses. Orphan Boy and their army of manic acolytes are the gonzoid, punk mentalist devision of the new Manc music scene, low on frills but loaded with philistine rock'n'roll thrills.

But crucially, this gonzo activity is not without a plan. It's been a year since Orphan Boy first crashlanded in Manchester as indie guitar unknowns from their birthplace, Grimsby. In that short time, they've built up a sizable fanbase, they've started up a fabulous new club night (the very contentious but appositely named Council Pop at the Waldorf),and they've inked a record deal with cool Manchester independent Concrete Recordings.

"We've worked really hard,'' explains Rob.

"When we came from Grimsby a year ago, we had no jobs, no money, no mates. It was a hard slog, but we were determined to make it work. Bands like the Libertines were really inspiring."

DIY punk culture

Autonomous DIY punk culture may be de rigeur in Manchester music culture eat the moment, but Orphan Boy have built something resembling a mini-empire. And the rise of the Orphanite fan army legitimises all that.

"That approach of doing it yourselves - if you can't get gigs, put on your own club night for people who are outside all the cool fashion cliques. That's how the Orphanites started .''

Not that growing up in the 'cul-de-sac' (as they refer to it as) of small town Grimsby really offered much to Orphan Boy career-wise.

"If you grow up in Grimsby,'' explains Smiffy, "you leave school, and you get put to work in a fish factory. It happens to everyone. There's nothing to do there. That's why we just locked ourselves away and wrote music.''

The earliest inception of Orphan Boy can be traced back to when Smiffy was playing solo slots, augmented by nothing more than a guitar and a makeshift drum machine.

One particular evening back in 2004, he managed to blag himself on to a line-up at the town's main (well, only) music venue - supporting none other than former Clash guitarist Mick Jones.

"It was a total blag,'' recalls Smiffy, with real incredulity.

"Meeting Mick Jones, it was quite intimidating. He's this dead tall skinny guy, in a huge mac. But he was really approachable. He said he liked my stuff, but that I should get a band behind me. That's where the band's name comes from - Orphan Boy. It's referring to me playing on my own, in need of other people around me.''

Nascent

Those other people turned out to be Rob and drummer Chris Day, Grimsby band stalwarts who brought added stomach and bite to Smiffy's nascent compositions. Moving to Manchester last year because they were sick of "playing to loads of sweaty Emo kids'' in their hometown, they've since become much-loved regulars on the Manc live scene, hailed as acerbic punk-pop poets in the 'Council Pop' movement alongside the likes of The Pedestrians, The Jakpot and CityLife fave Liam Fray.

However, it would also be grossly unfair to lump them with the post-Arctic Monkeys bandwagon of streetwise social realism bands. Less the Ken Loach-like monochrome realism of the Arctic Monkeys, Orphan Boy recall more the macabre fascinations of say, a Terry Gilliam movie, their songs full of ghoulish, phantasmagorical characters (check out the fantastic Mr Stevens track) that blur the line between truth and myth.

"We love bands like the Arctic Monkeys,'' says Rob. "But there's so many bands imitating that thing of writing about what's on your doorstep. I love someone like Frank Black from The Pixies, who writes about all the sick, perverse stuff in his head.''

Tied up in grim reality, lies and myth then, but there's at least one question that Orphan Boy can answer more straightforwardly: where would you like to see this band in a year's time?

Rob exclaims: "I want to be performing on Terry Wogan's show. He's our hero, a legend.''

Orphan Boy play Blowout @ The Bierkeller on Sunday, October 29. Their debut single, Billy's England is out on November 6 on Concrete Recordings. More information at: myspace.com/orphanboyuk